Floozy

Fruit and booze. What a combination! After a weekend in Wellington(capital city) last weekend spent this week making progress through 12 kilos of greengages. Jam and preserving in brandy. That should see us through the winter. Speaking of which yesterday the nations highest temp.29. It felt like it with high humidity as well. Not really the weather for jam making. The workers came home and asked"What's for dinner?" My face said it all. So takeaways it was. Dessert evening at our place tonight - rhubarb and strawberry cobbler and Coffee, walnut and meringue cake. If the response is favourable I will post the recipes.

It's got my goat

OK enough already! this hunting/gathering thing is getting out of order. Monday night Mr H (the neighbour) knocks at the door to give me 2 legs of goat(young kid) actually. I had just the recipe Peter Kuruvita's goat curry from his cookbook ' Serendip'. A beautiful book, but for someone with limited access to Sri Lankan ingredients perhaps not practical. Still the curry was lovely. The meat perfect. Having stocked up on vegetables after a trip to the farm on Saturday it all came together wonderfully.The farm is situated on the western side of the central plateau of the North Island of New Zealand. it is primarily a cropping farm of carrots. Number 8 wire innovation has given way to advanced technology as the carrot harvester was invented by Ivan the driver in the picture.

Deer Oh dear!

Walking out this morning spotted this deer being hung in the neighbour's garage ready to be butchered this afternoon. Took over a pot of the jam to ask permission for the photo. This is really buying local in my mind, if you don't hunt it, kill it and then cook it don't bother to tell me to ' buy local'. On a similar note I did my hunter/gather thing today, as I had used up all the lemons in the garden. I spied on my walk a tree overburdened with fruit. I knocked on the door and asked if I could pick a bag. No worries! They even offered me a bag. Not a problem I replied, "I came prepared". Promised a pot of jam will be put in the letterbox tomorrow. By the way Mr & Mrs H next door (they of the deer) tell me they rarely buy meat. Mr H shoots rabbits, goat and deer and is a keen fisherman and diver. His vege garden is immaculate. We are fortunate to live in such a temperate climate.